Stephen Ronald Quake (born 1969) is an American scientist, inventor and entrepreneur. He earned his B.S. in physics and M.S. in mathematics from Stanford in 1991 and his D.Phil. in physics from Oxford University in 1994 as a Marshall Scholar. His thesis research was in statistical mechanics and the effects of knots on polymers. He did his postdoctoral work at Stanford in single molecule biophysics with Steven Chu. Quake joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology at the age of 26, where he rose through the ranks and was ultimately appointed the Thomas and Doris Everhart Professor of Applied Physics and Physics. He moved back to Stanford University in 2005 to help launch a new department in Bioengineering, where he is now the Lee Otterson Professor of Bioengineering and App